


Aches Aplenty

by WaldosAkimbo



Series: Quick and Dirty Good Omens Crack or Drabbles [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Crowley hurts and Aziraphale comforts him in their cottage.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Quick and Dirty Good Omens Crack or Drabbles [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789003
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	Aches Aplenty

It’s a shame to say the day is just outright getting away from him. Dizzy spells, unsteady feet. Shakes. Someone’s sake, you might think he’s hungry, but the flip of his stomach says otherwise. Crowley, dear Crowley, unfolds himself in a haphazard heap on the old chesterfield and cradles an aching head in hand. He’s just about done with it.

“Is that you?” Aziraphale’s voice trips itself across the floor to Crowley’s lap, struggling to climb up the length of him and curl up as a shadow upon his shoulder.

“Who else would it be?”

He doesn’t mean to snap. Well, no, that’s a lie, he means to snap at rude people and sugar-sweet-kind people and naïve little nosy-bodies. He means to snap at bus drivers because it ruins a whole route for people. Or waitstaff. Except, no, never waitstaff. Aziraphale wouldn’t have it. Crowley wouldn’t have it either; they put up with so much already. Fine, fuck, who does he mean to snap at?

Not Aziraphale.

Worse, there’s no answer and he squirms with the thought he’s botched up the very last of this day and just…oh it’s so much. It’s too much! Should he cry? Demons don’t cry, unless their best friend’s discorporated in a fire during the oncoming End Times. Or children get caught up in a great big flood while never getting a chance to participate in the world and all its fun sins. Or if he stubs his toe on that table by the entryway that keeps on going through a tug-o-war whenever Crowley moves it and Aziraphale recognizes its been moved and slides it back because where else would he put his keys?

It’s been too long and Crowley ties himself back up into knots to make his joints work to his advantage, that advantage being crossing one room into the next to see what the heaven Aziraphale is up to that he asks a question once and doesn’t follow it up with a sermon on Crowley’s poor manners.

The second room is dark, curtains drawn, and cooler than the first. The walls are more shelves with books than proper plaster and wallpaper. The floor would be too, but a sort’ve meandering pathway makes itself known and is widened or shortened at any point of the week when Crowley forgets to clean. They make these arrangements in their new cottage together.

“Aziraphale?”

At that moment, in the dark and cool room, Aziraphale is minding himself in his own chesterfield chair, back straight, little round glasses stuck on the end of his nose and is applying needle and thread to a tight bundle of pages that must’ve slipped their cover. His chin is tucked down, his hair is curling up over his ears, his eyes are dark and focused, and his tongue sticks out at the corner. He drags the needle through the pages, taps at the head of it with the tiniest wooden hammer Crowley’s ever seen, and pulls it out the other side. There’s several augers and chisels and the likes on a table nearby, not nearly as belaboured by books, and ready to finish the binding when the book itself is ready.

Aziraphale could miracle the pages back together, the paper crisp and clean, the binding immaculate. He never has. _It’s best to do it by hand_ , he says often, and is not often surprised by a prick of the needle into his thumb, drawing it up to his mouth to suck on the tip of it, which forgets to bleed because Aziraphale does not think it should.

“Which one’s this one, then?” Crowley demands. No, strike that, asks. No, strike that, mumbles pathetically in the dark as he stays just beside Aziraphale, not willing to crowd into his work and demand attention like he so dearly yearns for.

“An account of Francis Carmorac in 1841 on his voyage to the north,” Aziraphale answers with a hum.

“Any good?”

“Not really.” He tugs the thread up and lays it down next to its neighbor, a thread patch all together. “But it has a lovely little poem at the end and I don’t wish to lose it.”

“Oh.” Crowley stares at Aziraphale’s hands for a moment, at the neat fingernails and the way he rubs them together before heading on to the next task. “You could just write it down yourself.”

“Could.”

“There’s gotta be a scrap of paper around here.”

“Mm?”

“I could look for you?”

“Mm.”

Except Crowley doesn’t move. His feet feel tense, like they want to crack open along the arches, and his bones are pushing too hard down. His wrists throb at the underside, right at the base of the palm, while his knuckles feel inflated. His neck is knobbly, his spine is croaky, his skin is itchy, his eyes are scratchy and none of its alleviated by looking for a scrap piece of paper just to scribble down some stupid little poem that’s been forgotten by everyone in the world but Aziraphale and maybe Francis Carmorac’s ghost.

“Crowley? Did you—” Aziraphale turns then, the little lamp near where he’s working obscured so his face goes into the shadows of the late afternoon and it’s hard to say what face he makes now, except that he gasps and his tools quickly go to the table. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

Crowley looks behind him. His guts spin with the thought that they have an unwelcomed guest come to ruin their good time. Instead of the shadow of their previous supervisors, he is startled by the feeling of those immaculate fingers sliding onto his wrist, gripping him, and then transferring said touch up his arm and to his face, where Aziraphale thumbs across his cheek. Damn! It’s wet!

“What’s wrong?”

Considering just a second ago he hadn’t known he was crying, Crowley only struggles his way through some sounds, unable to plot together a word or two to describe what he’s feeling. An evil creature like himself would wait for him to blunder on into an explanation, but he’s so damn blessed that Aziraphale is not the sort. Those hands may squeeze his wrist – and oh how the throb on his palm dissipates – and may cup his neck – and oh how the twinge down his spine smooths out – and may pull him closer until Aziraphale is wrapping him up in a hug.

“Let’s have a seat,” he says, an order dressed up in a shy request.

Crowley doesn’t nod, but he follows Aziraphale, who decides their shuffling might end in disaster and scoops up Crowley at the knees and around his shoulders and carries him the rest of the way. He scoots aside the manuscript with his elbow, off the arm of the chair onto a convenient pile of books just high enough that it won’t clatter and fall. When they settle into the seat together, old bones forced out of the convenient shapes of upright men, Crowley further unspools as Aziraphale rubs his shoulders and leans them back to rest.

Worse. Worse. Worse! Crowley begins to sob as each little nuisance and jab and crick and bruise are rubbed out of him. He’s unsure why. Aziraphale, kind Aziraphale, doesn’t need an answer for it. Perhaps he was just tired. Change in the weather. Food. A passing cloud. It doesn’t rightly _matter_ , but it is all attended to with the same exquisite care as Aziraphale provides his damaged manuscript and Crowley is completely undone by it.

Some time later, minutes or an hour or more, who’s to say, Crowley calms and quiets. His head is a block of cement. It sits on Aziraphale’s shoulder and refuses to move, but that seems just alright by the two of them.

“Feeling better?” Aziraphale asks.

“Mm. Yeh.” His voice croaks funny and he feels miserably hot at the idea of all this, but that too is whisked away with a chaste little kiss to his forehead.

“Very good. Can I read you the poem?”

“If you like,” Crowley answers through a sigh, trying to sound his usual disinterested and cool self. At least Aziraphale doesn’t pinch his elbow at his insubordination, after all that. He is still too tender to handle it. And it is all a façade anyhow. Cool. Calm. Barely true on a good day.

Aziraphale lets Crowley have this and reaches for the book, turning the pages together.


End file.
